The objective of this encyclopedia is to serve as an authoritative source of scientific and professional reference for students, researchers, and practitioners interested in the growing field of hospitality management.

In designing the encyclopedia the Chief Editor was guided by three principles. First, that the entries should be representative of the main sectors of the hospitality industry. Thus, great care was taken to include entries relevant to the lodging, foodservice, events, clubs, and timeshare sectors of the hospitality industry. Second, that the entries should reflect all the major managerial disciplines prevalent in the hospitality industry. Therefore, important entries were incorporated which are common in the disciplines of accounting and finance, marketing, human resources, information technology, strategic management, and facilities management. Third, that the entries should denote the global and cross-cultural nature of the hospitality industry. For that reason, the entries were written by authors who practice or teach hospitality management in different countries around the world.

The end result is a single volume that is composed of 728 entries containing some 362,000 words that were written by 218 authors from 23 different countries. The entries are alphabetically arranged and signed by their authors. At the end of each entry is a list of up to ten relevant and upto-date references, including electronic references and suggested websites. Though this encyclopedia is by no means an all-encompassing reference book that covers every single aspect of hospitality management as practiced in every country around the world, it is nevertheless a serious attempt to...